


Closer to Fine

by vtn



Category: Manic Street Preachers
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-11
Updated: 2009-10-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:59:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richey is ill and Nicky takes care of him.  Title from the Indigo Girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer to Fine

Nicky leaves Rachel by the window, wrapped in a flannel blanket and drinking tea under a look that is two parts concern to every one part scorn. He wants to kiss her goodbye but something about her eyes won't let him, so he just cups her cheek instead, pressing loose hairs to the soft skin of her face.

There's somewhere else he has to be, because there's a message burning a hole in his answerphone and a debt he isn't sure why he owes.

He knows who he owes, though, he thinks as he walks to the bus stop. He owes it to himself—no, to his childhood, to every moment spent basking in the warm sunny rays of his own self-denial. He's spent too much time pretending he didn't hold on to fragile fingers just a moment too long, pretending to forget kissing under the basement window, pretending he isn't cleaved in two the way he is. Can you be in love with more than one person at the same time?

His head down, Nicky boards the bus.

\---

"You're not being difficult," Nicky says. Richey peers through tired eyes out of a nest of bedding he's made himself.

"Yeah." He half coughs, half laughs. "I'm easy like Sunday morning. Nah, I'm easy like three AM on a Wednesday, more like." He shivers and pulls his covers in closer. "Nick, can you turn up the heat? It's so cold in here."

"It's bloody sweltering," Nicky counters. He puts a hand to Richey's face, and Richey tenses a bit before exhaling. Richey is soft too, just like Rachel, but his skin is too hot, with a sheen of sweat.

"I hate being fucking ill," Richey says, curling his body toward Nicky's hand. It reminds him of the way sunflowers turn their faces to follow the sun across the sky.

When the sun kisses the flowers, does it worry about catching their earthly malaise? Nicky wonders at the simplicity of the world when he's with Richey, Richey the complicating factor in everything. Somehow it doesn't matter that he's crossed the border of Richey's self-imposed quarantine, it doesn't matter that he's lying with Richey, kissing his hot forehead.

"Listen, baby," Nicky says, and maybe he wouldn't say _baby_ if Richey weren't so feverish, but, "listen, I got your call, and I thought I can't just leave you feeling like you do, and I thought maybe I should come round and--" Richey holds up a hand.

"You're going to try and do something for me and I'm going to refuse," he says. He lays his pretty head down on the pillow. "I've got mega willpower. You have no idea."

"Sure you do, byt. mega willpower." Nicky strokes Richey's forehead, feeling Richey wince at the tenderness.

\---

As Richey drifts in and out of consciousness Nicky brews tea on the gas stove. It's funny. He's everyone's wife—Rachel's too, really. He never gives himself a break, because his own equilibrium goes off balance if the house isn't at peace. At this point it's probably going to be him wearing the gown if they ever get married.

"Hey Rich, would I look good in a wedding dress?" he asks over his shoulder.

"Fuck off," says Richey halfheartedly, rolling over.

"Right, that's nice." Nicky rolls his eyes, warms his hands over the teapot even though it's nearly tropical in the flat. He doesn't want to think about Richey's heating bill next month.

The teapot whistles and Richey crawls out of bed, all skinny five-foot-seven of him wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, and takes a seat at the table. As he lifts his own mug to his lips, Nicky slips an arm between Richey's back and the chair's, feeling Richey warm and close to him. He could almost cry at the simple beauty of that. Touching someone you care about.

"Nick," says Richey , "I'm of no use to anyone. I can't even play guitar."

"I love you," says Nicky. "So don't worry about it. You're brilliant."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better," says Richey. Nicky sees the hint of a smile, and he gives Richey a sidelong glance to try and coax it out some more.

"You don't have to believe me," Nicky says, and Richey's lips spread, flashing white teeth. So Nicky catches those lips in a kiss that turns deeper, Richey's tongue slipping into Nicky's mouth. His eyes close, but not before Nicky spots a bit of shine in the dull.

\---

So Nicky knows that he and Rachel are going to have the flu now, unless some sort of miracle happens, but for God's sake there is this utter fucking ripping at his heart because Richey is sleeping with one arm spread up along the wall, and Nicky has to curl back up with him. Richey moans and turns and folds one arm over Nicky's chest.

He feels it with Rachel too. Feels the hurt, the hurt that seems to only get worse the happier he is, the way he wants to sob in the toilet for the sheer uncomfortable joy of seeing her sleep in a shaft of afternoon sun. So yeah. Maybe he is in love with both of them. Fuck it, fuck it, he can't sleep because he's too alive.

Nicky watches the cracks in the ceiling, watches Richey's breathing. He waits patiently for his friend to stop tossing and turning. He kisses Richey's fingers before he goes home.

The wind outside is high. On the bus, he coughs into his sleeve.

The things we do for love.


End file.
